Grave Problem Presents Project Solution For Scout

January 10, 1991|By LISA DANIELS Staff Writer

A local Boy Scout has taken up a grave matter in an effort to reach Eagle Scout status, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

Andrew Leinweber, a 14-year-old ninth-grader at Kecoughtan High School has organized the clean-up of a more than century-old graveyard which abuts North King Street and spans several acres in the downtown Hampton area.

He and dozens of other Scouts and adults have put in a cumulative 400 hours in December and January to clear the graveyard of overgrowth, fill in sunken graves, and right fallen headstones.

``I feel good about it,'' said Andrew, who lives with his parents at Fort Monroe.

The graveyard, known as the Elmerton Cemetery, was the burial site for many blacks, including teacher Mary S. Peake, who taught blacks during the mid-19th century, said Thorton Elliott, a museum interpreter at the Syms-Eaton Museum.

Peake died in 1862.

Andrew decided on the project after asking city officials what he could do to help community while trying for his Eagle Scout badge.

Eagle Scout projects are supposed to show the Scout's leadership while benefiting the community, said Judi Winter, scout shop manager for the Peninsula Council of Boy Scouts of America.

``It is a project that the boy must get others to assist him in and lead them,'' said Winter.

To attain Eagle Scout rank, Andrew will have to discuss his project with the advancement committee of the Peninsula Council.

If his project passes, Andrew plans on asking officials of the Powhatan District of the Scouts to consider a program whereby area troops would clean the graveyard annually or semi-annually.

The project cost the Leinweber family nearly $600 in rental equipment costs and feeding the volunteers on clean-up days, said Sheri Leinweber, Andrew's mother.

``This is an Eagle Scout project for our son and he felt it was a worthwhile mission so we said OK,'' she said.

A member of Troop #1, based at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Andrew has been a Boy Scout for three years.